DETROIT (WJBK) - A 3-year-old boy was shot and killed in a Detroit apartment Wednesday night and police are questioning the boy's mother's boyfriend - but friends and family believe it was a tragic accident.

Kyrie Boyd, 3, was shot in the face inside an apartment on Rossiter in Detroit Wednesday night. Police said the boy's mom's 22-year-old boyfriend Demetrius Peals was being questioned as a person of interest.

A memorial started to growing outside the apartment for the boy who sources say was shot inside a back bedroom. His mother, Kenisha Boyd, told police that someone drove by firing shots. However, police say the evidence does not match her story.

"This is not a game, why are you lying telling about someone doing a drive-by shooting? They didn't. Why would you lie about your son's death?" Demetrius' mom, Monique Peals, said.

She told FOX 2 that her son told her he and Boyd were inside with Kyrie and another child when they heard a gunshot. Kyrie was nowhere to be found.

"My son says he ran into the room and turned on the light and he was looking for him and he went on the side of the bed, he was on the floor dead," Monique said.

Friends and neighbors say they didn't hear the shot but saw an ambulance across the street that was responding to an unrelated emergency. Cornelius Johnson said they said Boyd was running with Kyrie in her arms but she was so hysterical she dropped the child.

He said Kyrie's wounds were so horrific, he had to close his eyes.

"I put him on the ambulance and me and my girl followed him to Saint John's," he said.

Neighbors said there was no sign of Demetrius but Monique said just minutes after the shooting, someone was pounding at her front door.

"I'm like, who is it? He's like mom it's me. When I opened the door he had blood all over him. I was like what's wrong, he said 'he's dead', I said who? He said it's Kyrie. I said what happened. He said he shot himself in the head."

Monique says she talked to Demetrius and convinced him to turn himself in around two Thursday morning.

"I told him you didn't do nothing wrong," Monique said. "I said so just tell them the truth from the beginning to end."

Meanwhile friends and neighbors are convinced that Kyrie somehow got ahold of that gun. On Thursday, though, the medical examiner ruled his death a homicide.

Friends and neighbors will be holding a candlelight vigil outside the Rossiter apartments Thursday night at 10.